***
Jane woke the morning after her last encounter with Lucas in the testing room and found that she was earlier than her friends. She went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror to examine the gash on her cheek. The baseball had hit part of her nose as well, and she could still feel a minute amount of pain there. As she stared at her reflection, she found it strange that she was not concerned about her wounds, or the pain they were causing her. She had not shown the wound to Morris; she had avoided him after the encounter out of fear that he might do something stupid.
Feeling hungry, she left her room and walked towards the stairs that would take her to the cafeteria. Approaching from her right side was the woman who had walked past the arboretum when she, Morris and Michael had scanned the facility. Jane looked at the woman as they drew closer. Her body language was clear; the woman was terrified and looked an absolute mess.
Her long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but she had missed a few strands, which hung in scraggly lines over the side of her face. Under other circumstances, the woman would have looked pretty. Jane could tell that she was in her early thirties, but she could easily pass for forty.
The woman approached Jane and smiled tentatively. She looked around from side to side, then up at the ceiling. This struck Jane as oddly paranoid, but then she remembered Michael’s injuries and understood why the woman was doing this.
“Hi, you’re Jane, aren’t you?” The woman’s voice was hoarse and ragged.
“Yes,” Jane replied politely, without extending any of her usual defiance or anger. The woman appeared to have enough difficulties of her own, so Jane reserved her insolence for Lucas.
“My name’s Charlotte. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before.”
“That’s okay. It’s nice to meet you.” Jane extended her hand confidently. The woman looked at it as though it were an inanimate stick. Then the woman took her hand and shook it firmly. Well, at least she has some energy left in there, Jane thought. She had the sudden impression that she had just met a new ally.
“Would you like to go into the arboretum, Jane?”
Jane thought this highly unusual, but consented. “Yes. Why not?”
They turned and walked towards the large glass window at the front of the garden. Jane noticed that the woman kept looking behind her as she walked. They entered through the glass door and sat on the other side of the room, using the same bench Jane had used on numerous other occasions.
“I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” the woman said simply.
“Because of Lucas?” Jane asked in just as candid a fashion. Charlotte looked at her, but didn’t shake or nod her head.
“Yes…and there are others he answers to whom I wouldn’t be too quick to trust. See, the reason these facilities exist—what they were originally intended for, at least—is to house people who have proven that they are a real danger to society. They actually have a legitimate purpose, if you ask me. I mean, how are you supposed to jail someone who can break concrete with this…ethereal energy?”
The woman had a point and Jane showed her agreement with her silence. After another moment, she spoke.
“What is it that’s changed, Charlotte? Why are they all running around like this? Why is Lucas manipulating me?”
Charlotte shifted uncomfortably in her seat, but didn’t respond.
“I’ve seen glimpses.” It was Jane’s turn to push now. “I’ve seen images of the water. The ocean,” she said, then paused. Charlotte turned and looked at her. “What are they looking for?”
After a long pause, during which she looked at the floor, Charlotte lifted her head and gazed out towards the glass at the front of the arboretum. “We don’t know what it is,” she replied in a low voice.
“So there is something out there?” Jane said with a sigh.
Another pause. “Yes.”
“What is it?”
“We don’t know. It’s somewhere in the Atlantic; that’s all I know.”
“You’ve got to give me something more here.” Jane looked out beyond the glass front of the room as various employees walked by, uninterested in their discussion.
“I’ve speculated, of course,” Charlotte said drearily, “but there’s not enough information about it yet. The probes deactivate when they get close. They sent a manned sub down to investigate, but from what I know, it was a disaster. I think they’re working on a new approach as we speak.”
Jane suddenly felt a dangerous fascination with this unexpected anomalous object, even more so because she was affiliated with it. A silence fell over them, filled by the intense awareness of this thing that Jane knew very little about and that had only recently come into her life. Charlotte turned slowly and stared at the gash on Jane’s swollen cheek.
“Did he do that to you?” she asked quietly, her voice trembling slightly.
“Yes. He did.”
Charlotte turned away from Jane and shook her head.
“Can you help us get out of here? The man has threatened my friends,” Jane said, watching as Charlotte merely stared into space.
“I’ve seen him watching the recording of the three of you in the cafeteria,” Charlotte said, her eyes drifting to the front of the arboretum. She seemed to ignore Jane’s request.
Jane considered this for a second, but knew it was imperative that she keep the conversation on track. “Look,” she said, “we’ve worked out that if we can disable one of the generators…”
“You mean you already know how the suppression field works?”
“Yes.”
“How did you find out?’
Jane decided to take a chance. “We scanned the area. Three of us, together. We scanned the facility and we saw them.”
“You were able to do that, even with the field active?”
“Yes.”
Charlotte squinted at Jane. “Lucas thinks you exemplify some kind of new power, something that hasn’t been seen before, that you’re amplifying the abilities of those around you,” she said, staring down at her. “Was he right, Jane?” Charlotte looked at her and Jane hesitated.
“Yes,” she responded, deciding to take a chance.
Charlotte regarded her and nodded. “I presume you can’t exert enough force to destroy the devices yourselves?”
“We were considering a plan, and it might have worked, but…”
“They turned up the field,” Charlotte said, finishing Jane’s sentence. Charlotte looked across the arboretum as two technicians in white coats walked by the main glass window. The technicians looked at them and gave the pair a bemused glance. Charlotte shifted in her seat. “I shouldn’t be here,” she said, seeming to drift away.
Jane took her arm gently and Charlotte turned back around. “You know he’s dangerous,” Jane said. “You have to help us. If you’re not going to help us then at least contact somebody who will.”
Charlotte looked at her, still appearing off, as though she were barely in the room. It was a troubling sight, and Jane could feel a desperate clawing inside her at the thought of yet another opportunity escaping her grasp.
Charlotte stood up. “I will help you, Jane. You have to understand, though, the position I’m in. This is difficult for me, too.”
“What are you going to do?” Jane asked as the woman walked away.
“I’m not sure yet,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. Charlotte turned around to face Jane again. “Even if I were able to disable the generator in the control room somehow, the facility has a large complement of security personnel.”
“I know that.”
“And that’s not the only problem. There’s an organisation…”
“I know. We saw the videos on the news…Ethereal End.”
Charlotte sighed. “The only thing left for them to do now is reveal our exact location to the public, which, as you can imagine, would be a disaster.”
“And is Lucas doing anything about it?”
“No.
His sole obsession is finding out about that thing in the ocean. And since you’re connected to it…”
Charlotte didn’t need to finish the sentence. Jane considered this, trying to ignore the new beat of panic rising inside her.
“There are defensive plans already in place. They’re taking dramatic steps to secure the facility, but…I don’t think it will matter.” Charlotte’s body quivered slightly, and Jane could almost see the wave of panic sweep over her.
“You don’t think it will be enough, do you?”
“No,” she replied after a moment.
“Well, if they get in here, we’re dead, Charlotte. They’ll kill us or capture us or…who knows what they’ll do.”
Charlotte seemed to regard what Jane said, then replied, “Alright. Just give me time to think something up, okay?”
Jane nodded at her. “Okay,” she replied.
Charlotte left the arboretum, leaving Jane sitting alone in the dimming light.
Jane watched Charlotte leave and walk down the corridor towards the metallic door that led to the section beyond Jane’s reach. Her encounter with the woman had not gone as she had hoped. Charlotte had said that she would help, but she hadn’t said when. Jane didn’t get the impression that she was fully committed, either.
As Jane was thinking this, the lights in the facility went out. The arboretum and every area beyond it was plunged into darkness. Jane felt the field go down the second the lights went out. It was like the weight of thousand-pound chains unrolling from around her body. Her heart beat faster, she took a deep breath and rose upward as her back straightened automatically. She was planning on reaching out into the facility to find her friends when she heard his voice in her mind.
Jane.
She gasped in the dark. It was Max.
You’re still here!
Yes, I’m still here; I’m watching you as much as I can. I can’t break through the dampening field.
I know…it’s too strong now, Max, they’ve turned it up. She gasped and her eyes welled up with tears just from hearing his voice again. She realised how much she had missed him. His image came clearly to her: the dark, beautiful coat and the golden clasps that attached it to his torso. The coat fluttered in the breeze (she understood, in an illusory way) as he hovered over the facility, looking down on her from the dark night above. She could see all this in her mind’s eye.
It’s okay, short-term exposure won’t damage you. You have to fight them, Jane. You will get out.
What happened to the power?
It’s temporary, and they’ll have it restored at any moment. Listen. Ethereal End—they are coming, and they are dangerous. It’s not a bluff. You have to—
The lights came back on, dimmer this time. Jane clutched her forehead as a surge of pain went up into her temple. She felt like vomiting and placed her hand across her stomach. She could think of nothing but him, though.
Max, are you still there?
Nothing.
MAX? PLEASE!
There was no reply. She was alone again. Tears welled up in her eyes and she stood, feeling the greatest amount of defeat she had encountered since entering the facility. She walked to the glass door and opened it, stepping into the corridor carefully. The lights were dimmer. Emergency power, she thought.
Ciara came from around the hallway, looking from side to side. She saw Jane and ran towards her just as Jane felt as though she was going to lose her balance. A light above them flickered. Ciara caught Jane’s arm and placed it around her shoulder. They walked on like this through the corridor towards the recreation rooms at the back.
“I think they’re on emergency power,” Jane said.
“What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know…I don’t…” Jane began to grow weak as she thought of Max. She had told only Morris about him. She decided it was time to tell Ciara.